“People ask me if what I do is for women and it’s not. It’s for men,” McGowan, 45, said Wednesday while being honored at the British GQ Men of the Year Awards. “Because I see you. I see how you get stolen at birth, told that you’re more important from the time that your feet hit the ground. And you’re sold an illusion and one you feel indebted to live. But it’s comfortable.”

“My monster paid off people in your industry: People to ridicule me. To paint me as imbalance. To paint me as a whore,” she said. “I am here tonight as a fully fledged human, one like you, who has experienced pain, who has experienced loss, who has experienced joy.”

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She also addressed the #MeToo movement, noting that her platform is “one of freedom for humanity.”

“I want women to be less misogynistic. I want women to hate themselves less and to understand they deserve a full seat at the table and that we are all equal under the eyes of the goddess,” she urged.

“I am simply here as a representative for those who have no voice,” she said. “I am simply the embodiment of those who cry and are not heard … I had my voice stolen by my rapist for 20 years. Let’s push at boundaries. Let’s fight to be ourselves. Let’s fight for who we were born to be.”